Political – Local
Meanwhile on Planet Babergh – Political Assistants for all?
There are days when we all have “would you believe it?” moments. The key skill is that one’s reaction should be just below that which irritates the family beyond measure. You only have to be a regular reader of the EADT to be glad that you are not a close family member of some of the regular Europhile correspondents.
One such WYBI moment was when I became aware that Babergh-Midsuffolk are advertising for a political assistant to support the new Green Party administration at an exciting time for Mid Suffolk District Council.
Now in the normal course of events I have only a brief interest in what Mid Suffolk Greens are up to. But, as Mid Suffolk and Babergh’s expenses tend to be shared I get concerned that we might be paying for this extravagance. So, I put the following question down for answering at the Council meeting on the 21st November.
Would you kindly confirm that:
No costs for this post will fall upon the taxpayers and residents of Babergh District Council and that any recruitment by Babergh District Council for a similar post will come to full council for approval prior to the post being advertised.
You’d have thought that the answers would be simple and that this could be an exercise in discovering something right and reasonable for a change. But, no! The matter was referred the Political Leaders’ Group who rejected the question.
Discreet enquiries as to the constitutionality of this action caused the question to be reinstated on the Council’s agenda.
The answers were that the costs of Mid Suffolk’s Political Assistant were for them to fund and that there were no plans for Babergh to have Political Assistants.
So, what does this mean?
Why the fuss, if the matter was innocuous?
Were one or more of Babergh’s coalition groups thinking of having political assistants and didn’t want the matter aired before they were ready?
Did they change their mind about their perceived needs once the disinfectant of public awareness’ was applied to their ambitions?
All in all, I think Babergh has dodged the Political Assistant bullet for the time being and the future requires us to be alert to similar future developments.
This blog/post is the sole responsibility of its author Brian Riley.
It has not been approved nor is it endorsed by Babergh District Council or South Suffolk Conservative Association
Deputy Leaders’ Allowances
Often, District and County Council meetings test one’s boredom level as the meetings are often a formality and decision making is often pushed to the side. So it was on Tuesday when Babergh Councillors were asked to note the Council’s Annual Treasury Management Report and the progress and strategy of CIFCO (the Council’s property company). Although the papers presented to us were for noting rather than approval there was some lively questioning
About an hour and a half into the meeting we sat down to look at a paper for approval bearing the seemingly innocuous title “BC/23/17 Recommendation from the Independent Review Panel”.
This paper suggested that as we now had two Deputy Leaders (one a legal requirement) and the other discretionary (depending upon the wishes of the parties concerned), they should both be classified as political and were recommended to receive 1.25 times the basic Councillor’s allowance as a special responsibility allowance for their respective positions.
The paper’s arguments seemed reasonable until the assumptions were tested. The comparative councils with two or more deputy leaders were much larger than Babergh. The range of skills and duties suggested that we would be paying over the odds for a job share programme. Really, this was a ruse to reward political allies.
After much discussion in the chamber, I was pleased to move an amendment to the original proposals and suggest that as this was a job share, each of the deputies should receive half of the suggested allowance.
The voting went to 11 votes for and 11 votes against with 5 abstentions. The Chair exercised her casting vote against the amendment, even though there was a distinct mood that the original suggestions were not acceptable.
We then moved to voting on the substantive motion. 10 voted for and 11 voted against whereupon the original recommendation was lost and the residents won.
Taxpayers should not be paying for vanity projects and this whole exercise demonstrated that although the Conservative Group at Council is small (seven of us) we are not without friends.
The meeting may be viewed on YouTube and the web address is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQhNAX5Que0
Disclaimer:
This blog/post is the sole responsibility of its author Brian Riley.
It has not been approved nor is it endorsed by Babergh District Council or South Suffolk Conservative Association
And Bollards to You
The latest advice from Babergh District Council is that the Pinewood Parish precept has risen by 5%
Looking at the Pinewood Parish web site you would be hard pressed to know how much will be raised and what the money will be spent on.
The minutes for the Parish meeting on 24th January record that the pubic were excluded from the discussions on financial matters.
The minutes do show the Parish spending will rise to £173,781.
But, the public were denied details of the Parish’s priorities for spending…
So, we are all being treated like mushrooms: kept in the dark and unlikely to see the light until we are harvested.
Previously I have commented on the extravagance of the car park bollards.
Without the daylight of public scrutiny, more extravagances are on the horizon.
We need more transparency and accountability.
We need to know what they are spending our money on.
Without the disinfectant of public knowledge and scrutiny we are just maintaining a money-pit.
Tribal Attacks
A version of the following letter appeared in the East Anglian Daily Times on Saturday (29th October). Ellesmere is Leader of Ipswich Borough Council (and is a vociferous Labour party member). He appears more or less every Monday in the EADT. I read his column to ensure that my low blood pressure is raised to an appropriate level. Last week I had had enough hence my response. Please enjoy or ignore as appropriate.
Dear Sir,
David Ellesmere on Monday (No Tories can be trusted to act in our best interests) paints his usual one-sided picture attacking the Government of the Day. Yes, I voted for Liz Truss – why, because she offered a vision of the future which I found attractive rather than the bleak outlook offered by Rishi. My regret is that the supply side economic vision was not sold properly on the establishment. I suspect that the Treasury did not like the ideas and neglected to get the Bank of England on side – thus when purse strings should have been loosened, they were tightened by the means of raising interest rates to dampen demand. And yet, inflation is not being caused by excess financial demands. Rising costs are being caused by increased fuel costs, lack of supplies in the Italian pasta belt and the shortage of sunflower oil (from Ukraine) and so on.
Putting up interest rates will shrink the economy, reduce business opportunities and penalise the working middle classes and the poor. The first will suffer because their aspirations will be blunted and the poor because their opportunities to get on the working ladder will be further reduced.
The Bank of England were late recognising that there were inflationary pressures following on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Russians squeezing their oil supplies to Europe.
But what are the choices for the electorate after Rishi Sunak? Labour is united behind a doctrine of no policies except to criticise everything as being too early, too late, too little, too much. They would have shut down the economy sooner and prolonged it further than Boris Johnson.
Mr Ellesmere should concentrate upon making Ipswich more attractive and stop complaining that not enough Government money is forthcoming. He cannot publicly criticise the government and then expect to be treated generously. Some Labour Mayors understand this only too well. They keep political purity and recognise the need to work with the centre.
Like Mr Ellesmere I regret the current economic realities. We are well placed compared to our European neighbours and our borrowing levels are not excessive. Although Mr Ellesmere claimed that the Bank of England had spent £65billion over a few days in supporting the Gilts market – the real figure as of last week was around £20billion over three weeks. But then any extravagance in speech is worth it if it makes a point.
Let’s focus on Ipswich. The new owners of the football club are bringing millions in development funds to the town. Let’s make sure that Ipswich Borough Council supports those developments and stops seeing itself as a permanent victim of whatever economic winds are blowing.
Yours faithfully,
Brian Riley
Meanwhile on Planet Babergh
Just when you think that lessons have been learned, you realise that very few people pay attention to history, whether it is recent history or not.
Readers of this blog may recall that on May 3rd 2016 I posted a commentary on the then continuing saga of East House, which Suffolk County Council had handed back to Babergh who didn’t know what to do with it except to evict the tenants and leave it empty. The unfortunate history of East House is that whilst Babergh made up its mind, the market moved on and any rehabilitation/upgrading with a view to selling was rendered uneconomic.
This week’s news is that Babergh District Council are to increase the debt threshold for Babergh Growth Ltd., from £3,7 million to £7m to facilitate cash flow. The company is responsible for the redevelopment of Babergh’s former offices in Corks Lane We can assume that the cash will be flowing all one way for some time to come as the cash holdings of the company were only £61,433 at 31st March 2021.
The development is expected to realise 57 homes. Due to increased costs and impacts from Brexit, the war in Ukraine and inflation, the costs of the scheme have gone up by £680,000 over four years– which begs the question why is there an increase in borrowing powers of £3.3 million.
And now comes the prize-winning comment from the Great Leader of the Rainbow Coalitioned Council (John Ward) “Ultimately the development is still expected to break even or even show a modest profit”
Why are we undertaking a marginal project? You can almost hear echoes of “With a fair wind and a few sunny days, this time next year we could all be millionaires”
It’s time to go back to basics. The economic outlook is not good and the project needs to be reworked to bring the projections back to a reality which will give comfort to the residents that their leaders know what they are doing.
The Great Helmsman
I like reading spy novels. Whether it is The Three Musketeers, through to
John Le Carré and currently Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb series. Through all the novels you can see the need for informational intelligence. Even Peaky Blinders has strong elements of inside knowledge, whether it is fixing races or choosing which side of a contest you will be on. Reading spy novels also let’s you explore the how, what and why of any situation
So, I greeted the news with interest that John Ward, Leader of Babergh District Council has resigned from the Conservative Group, has formed an Independent Conservative Group with three others and is now heading up a rainbow coalition with other minority party councillors.
What is going on?
We are told it arises from the dismissal from the Cabinet of an independent councillor which lead four other councillors to resign from the Cabinet. Plans to form a minority administration with other Conservative councillors fell by the wayside and so one thing lead to another.
There was a meeting of the (Conservative Councillor) group on Sunday 24th John Ward’s proposals were unacceptable. I guess that at some point the toys went out of the pram, a huff was called and John went off in it.
On the Monday John resigned from the Conservatives and formed his so-called Rainbow Cabinet.
How the Rainbow Cabinet members will be successful in the next district election in 2023, I cannot tell. But South Suffolk Conservatives (the councillors’ sponsoring organisation) must decide how this affects their plans.
Constitutionally, the defecting members must either resign from the party or be expelled. In either case they face the prospect of having official candidates stand against them and also having to pay off their 2019 election expenses.
For the time being John Ward remains the Great Leader, resting upon the support of the Independent Conservatives, The Independents, The Lib-Dems and the Greens.
I can see it all ending in tears. The Shotley Independents and the Greens are against car park subsidies, particularly in the two towns of Sudbury and Hadleigh. I guess that the headline Council Tax will come down or will be less than the Government cap and any shortfall will be met by increased parking charges and increases in any other charges that can be levied.
Watch out for higher planning fees, brown bin fees and so on.
John Ward is holding onto his powers not because he has a great vision that he must implement. He’s holding on because he doesn’t want to be a back bencher and this way he upholds his amour propre.
Such a position does not bode well for Babergh nor for Councillor Ward
Photo © Greg Fitchett (cc-by-sa/2.0)
Vanity of Vanities; All is Vanity
The Church of the Militant Elvis Party first appeared on the national political scene in 2001 when the party stood in Brentwood (Essex) where it ran in the General Election against Eric Pickles and Martin Bell. As a very minor party it unsurprisingly garnered 68 votes.
The party contests all General Elections and some by-elections. Their beliefs include Elvis still being alive and living in an old people’s home on the Lincolnshire coast somewhere between Skegness and Mablethorpe.
Its aims are to combat the influence of various right-wing churches on mainstream parties in the U.K.
Furthermore, the Party believes that the established church’s involvement with the global market is yet another contradiction of Jesus’s teachings. They are also interested in stopping the degradation of the planet by capitalism and the attacks on old people’s welfare in the UK.
So far so good. I came across them this month when I was looking at the by-election results for Erdington (Birmingham) when the party came last with 8 votes. Usually, they score between 50 and 200 votes each time and to end the latest campaigning season with only 8 votes seriously suggests that they are having trouble getting their message across or that they have become the Billy No-Mates of political parties.
All in all, the ratio of cost to votes indicates that standing in elections can be a vanity project beyond understanding.
Since power comes from the people and respecting the King, I’m pleased to plug their web site: https://grumpyoldelvis.co.uk/
The Bildeston Melon
Scratch a Green and discover what sort of melon they are. Are they red on the inside (closet Socialist) or yellow (closet Liberal).
I’ve always had my doubts about Robert Lindsay, leader of the Greens on Babergh and a County Councillor in Suffolk.
I was not too surprised when Lindsay announced that he would have reduced Council Taxes by increasing car parking charges specifically in Hadleigh and Sudbury.
So far, as expected.
On Monday (21st Feb) the Greens at the Babergh District Council Meeting went further. Cllr Lindsay expanded on the Green ambition that if all parking was taxed appropriately the monies raised and saved could go to subsiding bus services and providing grants and other support to those businesses adversely affected by the parking regime.
So it’s in with more bureaucracy in the guise of serving the people with the additionality of opportunities for waste and corruption in money dispersal matters
So, now we see their true colours. They are not interested in global warming as such but are keen on redistributive taxes. The car parks are to be a money maker.
And what if that’s not enough? Will they advocate (like some councils) taxing parking spaces at work? Will they regard garages at home as facilitating car ownership and therefore taxable?
At District level Robert represents Bildeston and its surrounding area. Bildeston is a large village with just over 1,000 inhabitants. It also has free, maintained parking in its village square. Is this square to be monetised? Is it to be exempt? Do the villagers know Cllr Lindsay’s ambitions?
We should be told, but I don’t think we shall.
Photo © Evelyn Simak (cc-by-sa/2.0)
Poodle Councillor of the Year
It’s not too late to nominate the Poodle Councillor of the year.
Alastair McCraw, Babergh & Mid-Suffolk’s chair of Scrutiny gets my nomination.
His comment (EADT 21st Aug) that it was not the job of his committee to delve into the accounts of the Council’s property company indicates that he and his committee felt able to discuss the results of the Council’s endeavours without seeing the formal accounts of the company.
Had he reviewed the formal accounts, he would have seen that the auditors have revalued the property portfolio downwards as at 31st March with a note that the revaluation included material value uncertainty as a result of the pandemic meaning that less certainty and a higher degree of caution should be applied to the valuation than would normally be the case.
In other words, the situation may be worse than the figures suggest.
Moreover, he would have also concluded that the revenues may have been overstated as they include rentals billed but not paid. Indeed, rentals not yet paid are treated as debtors (current assets).
So, there is possibly a double whammy of overstated profits and unrealistic current asset values.
The Joint Scrutiny Committee could have teased out all these issues and taken an informed view.
There may be a case of muddling through to see what happens, but that requires the people who perform oversight and scrutiny to fully immerse themselves in their responsibilities.
Alastair McCraw self-confesses that he doesn’t do this.
He is the Council Executive’s ideal choice as Chairperson.
As such he is well qualified to be Poodle Councillor of the Year
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